War God for Hire- Mercenary: A Reincarnation, Cultivation, Litrpg Adventure

by David Burke

  “Okay, but what are they?”

  “The bones become animated, but instead of being one simple creature, it is made up of thousands upon thousands of bones. The bones swirl in the air like a blizzard, cutting and stabbing any living thing that gets in their way. It is a gruesome death, because if you are slain by one, your bones shed your flesh and join the storm, In this way, they continue to grow larger and larger until stopped,” Kierra answered.

  “And how could your warriors stop such a thing?”

  “There is no chance one can beat them in honest combat, my Alpha. Even with a lich, you can stop its casting by splitting its skull in two. But the destruction of a few bones is nothing to a bone storm. Even fire does little against them unless the fire is hot enough to turn instantly turn the bones to ash. Mostly though, fire just makes the bones more brittle—which creates another problem, as even more shards of bone are thereby created. The only reliable way to stop a bone storm is to have a powerful magi call down the blessing of their god or goddess.”

  “Have you actually seen this happen?” Kyle asked.

  Kierra looked at the ground. “No, my Alpha. I am only relating to you what I’ve been taught.” She looked back up at him. “Although our village elder claimed to have seen it.”

  They ended up running for more than sixty miles. Kierra’s enhanced form could easily lope along at a brisk pace that ate up the miles. They were forced to stop a dozen times to kill clusters of zombies, and a few times even skeletons, which must have been created from buried bodies. As he’d predicted, Kyle even got to fight zombie sheep. He really wanted to crack some jokes about black sheep but figured they’d go right over Kierra’s head.

  When they had scoured the local area, they came back to stop in the area where Kyle had first found her. It was clear that this river had been active not that long ago, as the Kyle could sense the water just a couple inches below the surface.

  It had been a shallow but rather wide river.

  Kyle asked Kierra about it, but she didn’t know anything more about the geography of the area. She’d never farther south than a couple hundred miles north of Thena until after she’d been captured by slavers. The more he thought about it, the more he began to believe that someone must have dammed up the river. There were definite indications of an intelligence behind this attack.

  The necromancer’s mention of his ‘master’ was one. But it was how the construct created by the void wraith had interacted with the necromancer, that left Kyle perplexed. It was almost like they were reluctant allies.

  It really made no sense. The void was the enemy of everything that existed, not just the living. The undead would not fare any better than humans or elves if void wraiths attacked Verden.

  When they stopped, there were still a few hours before sunrise. Kyle assumed the others would still be sleeping, but he wasn’t really tired. His reserves of essence had only grown lately, and it felt great to have been able to cut loose for once. Now, another idea hit him.

  “Kierra, would you be willing to try something new?”

  She turned back to look at him over her shoulder and immediately dropped to the ground on all fours, lifting her taut ass in the air. “Of course, my Alpha. You may have me anyway you want me. Anywhere. Anytime.”

  Little Kyle responded immediately with a definite affirmative to that, but Kyle’s bigger brain had something else in mind. “You honor me and demonstrate my strength to any who would challenge me. Thank you, my pet.”

  He smiled to take the sting from his words, “but as enticing as that is, I have something else in mind.”

  Not bothering to hide her disappointment, Kierra asked, “How may I serve you, Alpha?”

  “By becoming stronger.”

  His words confused her. “Have I failed you? Are you upset you had to intervene when I fought the undead? I promise you I would have won, or at least escaped, if that child of the void is as strong as you say.”

  “No,” he shook his head, “that isn’t what I mean. I mean that I want to strengthen you, but this isn’t something I can order you to do.”

  He winced. “I still don’t know for sure if it will work. Before, I had some idea about what I was doing because of having done something similar to Gilthan… but not this.” He blew out a breath. “This would be an experiment, of sorts.”

  “I trust you, my Alpha.”

  Kyle stared at her, looking for any sign she might have doubts. Then he said, “I want you to know I have not forgotten my promise to you.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I will free your people from the fiend who preys on them,” Kyle added.

  “I believe you, my Alpha. If anyone can defeat Beltarkus, it would be you. He is the sire of my race, but he is a monster who uses us for his own sport. If he were not so prone to irrational behavior, he would have extended his control much further south.”

  “Your confidence is important to me. I care for you Kierra. I know you only are with me because you think I’m your Alpha, but …”

  For once, Kierra cut him off. “It is not just because of that. In the frigid north, strength is everything. But just as you have learned to honor my beliefs and customs, I have learned about yours.”

  She blushed prettily. “It is nice to be cared for, not merely desired or used.”

  Kyle nodded. They understood one another. This might never be the melding of minds he had with Hilde, or the warm affection he felt for Nyda, but Kyle would fight to the death to protect Kierra. She was his, and no one would harm her while he was around.

  More than that, he was going to free her people. She would become the matriarch of the freed lycans. Hopefully, in turn, they would become a powerful force in the army he was building.

  “Then know that as soon as I have everyone organized here, at least you and I will travel north and free your people. You will rule over them, and through you, they will become a critical part of army,” he said.

  She grinned, her tongue lolling out as she squatted on her heels. “This is good. My Alpha proves his strength by his conquests.”

  They sat upon the ground, cross legged, facing one another.

  “I need you to relax and just allow me to fill you with my essence. I am going to be trying something that, as far as I know, has not been accomplished since Verden was first created.”

  “I thought it wasn’t that kind of thing,” she smirked back at him, eyes lit by an inner fire.

  The lust in her voice almost broke his concentration. Enough so that he partitioned his mind. A small part he left pondering the many questions he had. Another small part kept tabs on their surroundings. A third segment paid attention to her in a physical sense, while the majority of his mind remained focused on his cultivation task.

  If he lost control during the middle of this, he could end up crippling Kierra. Actually, that would probably be the least of his concerns. If this went badly, he might rip a hole in the universe. Who knows what that might do to Verden.

  He hoped the reward would be worth the risk. It was just too much of a coincidence that he kept seeing flashes of color in the raw essence. Kyle would have liked to compare notes with another of the gods, to see if they were aware of this. He wondered if it was his outside perspective that allowed him to see something the others didn’t. The memories he had from Krig didn’t leave any impressions of the former war god ever considering what Kyle was considering doing.

  Of course, maybe he was finally cracking under the strain of holding a god’s power.

  Kyle wanted to see if he could bring out more of that purple essence in Kierra. It was space essence, and so he had carefully considered what that meant: the distance between things, freedom, an area of privacy, and discrete identity, as well as aspects of time were all wrapped up in the concept of Space. Kyle was hardly a physicist or philosopher, so that was as far as his mind went down this path.

  He hoped that the innate control he had been able to
exert over this world would fill the gaps in his knowledge. He began pulling enormous quantities of raw essence through Kierra. Again, he took advantage of her natural aptitude as a sieve and started straining out the other essences. Kyle could sense that having millions of points of raw essence flow through her caused her pain, but she was as stoic as ever. Only a subtle twitching of her ears betrayed that she felt any pain.

  As much as he hated hurting her, Kyle couldn’t stop now. He just wished that she was better able to cultivate herself. Like everyone but Hilde, Kierra could only handle tiny bits of raw essence.

  With his gifts, she managed the types of essence he had gifted her quite well. War essence turned her claws into the personification of piercing or cutting. Earth essence made her strong. Deceit essence made her movements hard to track and air essence enhanced her already superhuman speed and agility.

  For all that, she had no ability to move raw essence through herself. She couldn’t help him with sifting through the essences beyond providing a filter. He tried moving more of it, but to his divine senses, it seemed as though she literally just a vessel he could move essence through. At no point, did it become her own. If she couldn’t cultivate, at least a little bit, he worried that he would never be able to refine enough of the space essence for her to use it.

  “Just try and relax. Don’t fight it,” he murmured. “Can you see the purple essence? No, hmmm. Relax more. It’s there, I promise, and it wants to connect with you. You can do this.”

  Kyle continued whispering encouragement to her. He explained the concepts of space, but even to his own ears, it sounded like a dry technical description—not the vital and intimate understanding required to master any type of essence. If only she could share in his ability to cultivate…

  Unfortunately, even their divine bond didn’t make them anything more than two closely connected individuals. Maybe that was it. It was lewd, but it just might work. He willed his armor to disappear and then sat there before her naked as the day he was born—albeit not in the same body he’d been born in on Earth, but rather a construct filled with the power of a god.

  Kierra saw what he was doing and didn’t need any prompting. In a moment, her leather skirt was hiked up around her waist and she’d straddled his legs.

  Kyle was surprised when he felt the heat of her crotch as she hovered briefly over him, even before her slick wetness enveloped him. Had she been that turned on? Apparently, so.

  She straddled him and then lowered herself onto him. His cock sprang to life as soon as the idea had crossed his mind. The part of him that was aware of her physically took in the lewd beauty of her face as she moaned breathlessly.

  “Oh godd, yesss. Fill mee upp, Alpha. I’mm all yours. Takee me.”

  Inch by inch, she slid down onto him. Her body wrapped tightly around his and the two became one. They both relaxed in bliss and his channeling became more instinctual. Their centers pressed tightly together; Kierra began to grind against him.

  Suddenly, between soft moans, she exclaimed, “Ohh godds I… I caaan seee ittt.”

  “The purple?”

  “Yesss, I feeell it innn meee. Like I amm connecttedd to youuu.”

  “Try to grab it. Squeeze it through your essence channels, just like you are squeezing me,” Kyle mumbled. His partitioned mind was the only way that he was able to keep from losing himself completely to the amazing way Kierra made him feel.

  His hands ran all over her body as she writhed upon his cock. Then, he started to feel an extra squeeze. Not just the one in his lap that was trying to break down his resistance, but an extra tug around the essence he was cultivating.

  Bit by bit they began to work in rhythm.

  In just the way his thrusting and her squeezing found a natural rhythm, so too did their manipulation of Space Essence. All the remaining raw essences fell away until there was a single strand of purple Space Essence flowing like a snake through them. It flowed from him, through all her essence channels, and then back into him only to be accelerated and passed back to her harder, faster, and more powerful.

  He found that while they were two parts of the same process, they were each better at one half of the equation. He was better at drawing in more essence and pushing it back to her faster, but she was better and refining its purity. The cycle continued between the two of them for over an hour. Their bodies and souls locked in unity.

  Eventually, just as he realized he could hold back no longer and was about to erupt into her, he felt something blossom within her. He felt almost a tiny echo of his cultivation in her, but when he orgasmed, more than just his physical essence flowed into her.

  He also formed a new spoke on her essence wheel. It was every bit as large as the War Essence spoke he had originally gifted her with. This one was a brilliant purple and tingled with a strange energy.

  People always say that great sex was like making the heavens move, but this time it was more real. The structure of order in Verden shifted in that moment. No longer were there only eight types of refined essence. In their unity Kyle and Kierra had refined Space Essence—something that hadn’t existed since Rom had fallen.

  Kyle wondered if this would provide a way for his old friend to be reincarnated but didn’t want to speculate. This was unfamiliar territory. None of Krig’s memories prepared him for this.

  As he looked inside himself, he saw that not only Kierra had gained a new spoke on her essence wheel, but he had as well. Hers was at the peak of Monster Tier, whereas his was just a tiny sliver, but it was there. He had hoped that he too would be able to manipulate space essence.

  The world had just changed and Kyle wasn’t clear about all the implications this change might have.

  Chapter 12 - New Flesh

  As exciting as the new essence had been, the two of them pushed it aside for another hour of passion before finally returning to the guildhall. Kierra didn’t know what she could do with space essence yet, but Kyle thought it would be best if she tried it on her own.

  “If you need help with it, let me know. I just think that if you can master it on your own, that it will feel more a part of you.”

  “Yes, Alpha. I shall strive to make you proud,” Kierra replied.

  He grabbed her face in his hand, cupping her chin, and leaned in to press his lips against hers. “I am already proud of you. Do this to become all that you can be. The women beside me must have their own drive.”

  She nodded and then stalked down the hallway in search of a morning meal. Kyle allowed himself a moment to watch her leave. The sight was always pleasant, even if he missed her already.

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts. This was a big development, but there was more to do. He needed to meet with Nyda to work on her powers. He also had to check in on Saber to find out how the man was handling his upgrades. Then, there was a discussion about new troops and training methods that they needed to have—not that he was looking forward to that part.

  There was also Gilthan, who he needed to use for advanced scouting. The man’s mastery of Sky Essence had only grown, and he would be a great long-range scout. Kyle needed to learn what was happening further south. Maybe he could find the source of all these troubles.

  Kyle also needed to make sure that Skrug was staying out of trouble. The dire troll was definitely more intelligent now, but most of that seemed to be focused on loyalty to Kyle. Without some face time, he was afraid the man would either cause trouble, or end up in it.

  Finally, there were the two discussions that he kept pushing off. He needed to come to terms with how to handle Lash—or Marie, as he preferred to think of her. That was Krig’s memory surfacing, but the name was pleasing to him. With Hilde’s blessing given, there was nothing stopping him from adding her to the team in a more permanent fashion. Not to mention, he probably owed her a heart-to-heart conversation about what she had suffered through, staying loyal to the war god. He knew it wasn’t his fault she had been tortured, but it didn�
��t mean that it didn’t cause him some guilt.

  That conversation was one he kept putting off, but problems like that can’t be avoided, only delayed. And the delay was causing additional problems on its own. As much as he wasn’t looking forward to finally tackling that problem, he faced a harder one still with the final member of their core group.

  Something was up with Lady Meeka. He couldn’t deny it anymore. She wasn’t who she claimed to be—at least not entirely. He didn’t know if she was some powerful magi hiding in plain sight, or if she was an agent for one of the other gods. But he needed to get to the bottom of it. Whatever it was, she hadn’t been honest with him.